Tips To Taking Automatic Pictures

Ever since digital photography has been introduced to the consumers, taking pictures has never been easier. You can just frame the image and snap the picture immediately. The most you need to do is to select the correct mode and the digital camera will adjust itself and give you the optimum pictures. The following tips are going to show you how you can leverage on this automatic mode to take some nice pictures.

1. Getting the camera ready

Select the dial on your camera to automatic mode (refer your manual for the right icon or indication) and frame your picture. Press the shutter button halfway down to let the camera gets the focus and exposure of your subject. When the digital camera is done, it will either give a beep or light and you can then push the shutter down completely to take the picture.

2. Focus

When you are in automatic mode, the digital camera will do this for you. If you are using a compact digital camera, it is common to see green boxes on the LCD screen when you are pushing the shutter button halfway down. These boxes indicate the focus zone selected by the camera. So, when you take the picture, these areas will the sharpest part of your picture. You can however change these focus areas by letting go of the shutter button and press it halfway down again.

3. Exposure

If you have read about how to get the right exposure for your picture, you probably will be confused by what you read. You need some photography experience before you can properly get the right exposure.

So, if you are like me, you will let the camera do its job. Digital cameras come with an exposure system to measure the light coming from the scene and use the measurement to give you the best exposure.

4. Flash

Looking at the autoexposure reading, the digital camera will then decide to activate the flash or not. But depending on the manufacturers, some compact digital cameras might have flash that is too strong and some is too dim. Sometimes, it can be quite frustrated to be unable to control the intensity of the flash.

This can be different if you are using a DSLR camera. You just need to take the extra step to point your flash unit away from the subject and the flash will be dispersed. You might need some practices with this.

5. Aperture and shutter speed

And judging from the light in the surrounding and exposure system, your digital camera will automatically adjust the aperture size to allow the total amount of light entering the camera.

If the light is not enough, the aperture will be opened wider so that more light can enter the camera and vice versa. By the way, the shutter speed will go opposite of the aperture just to achieve the same purpose. That means the shutter speed will be lowered when the aperture size increases if more light were needed for the picture and vice versa.

Confuse? Is OK. All of these are being done automatically by the digital camera once your select the automatic mode. You don't need to fuss about them.

I hope the tips just now have given you some insights to how you can leverage on the automatic mode to take nice pictures. :-)

Happy taking pictures,

Michael Wong. :-)